Chapter Text
[March 8, 1994]
Right before seven A.M., the morning after Richie Tozier’s eighteenth birthday, Richie is deep in sleep. He celebrated his adulthood with his parents a day early, due to his parents flying out for Wentworth’s college friend’s wedding on the day of Richie’s birthday. Richie didn’t do too much on his actual birthday, though, other than smoking a joint with Bev and going to Stan’s house for dinner.
Birds meander carefully at the sill of Richie’s bedroom window, knowing that they sometimes receive crumbs when the boy is feeling kind, but they disperse anxiously as the buzz of Richie’s morning alarm starts up.
Richie groggily opens his eyes at the noise, and groans as he hits the top of the digital clock to attempt to silence the alarm.
“Fuck you,” Richie mutters when the alarm doesn’t turn off. He sits up, actually pressing the button to make the stupid thing shut up and rubs the sleep out of his eyes as he does so. Dramatically, he throws the comforter off of himself and stands up with a stretch and a groan. “Good fuckin’ morning, Richie,” he mumbles to himself as he pulls off his shirt and grabs a random one from the pile on his floor designated “not smelly.” He’s unfortunately at half-mast, which is how he often wakes up. Disjointed, he thinks of Eddie’s big, brown eyes and immediately chastises himself with a pinch on the wrist.
By the time that he pisses, washes his hands, and pulls on a loose pair of jeans, his dick is acting normally again, which he thanks God for. Look, he’s not opposed to being late to school, but there’s just something embarrassing in the idea of missing first period just because his dick was hard.
Richie heads downstairs to grab his backpack, an apple from the kitchen, and the keys. Separating his car keys from his house keys on the ring, he sticks the apple in his mouth. He exits his house and locks the door, walking over to his janky old truck to unlock it.
Richie’s truck has scratches all along the sides and dents in the front bumper. When it was first bought, it was a vibrant red, but over the years it has faded to be a color resembling pink. This car was his granddad’s pride and joy, even right up to his death when his cancer had gotten so bad that he couldn’t drive it or take care of it. Anyways, Richie inherited the car when his grandad croaked, which feels annoyingly nostalgic. He used to ride with his grandad in this car when he was younger, and now he’s driving to school as an adult.
The car door opens with slight resistance, but Richie persists. Sliding into the driver’s seat, he starts the ignition and slams the door closed. He finally finishes the bite of the apple that he’s been holding in his mouth and holds it in his right hand as he starts off to school. The apple is a gala, which Richie always insists that his parents buy because it’s Eddie’s favorite, and he always gets excited when the Tozier’s have galas in the house.
Richie prefers granny smith, which is neither here nor there.
Richie quickly arrives at Derry High School and parks his car in the student parking lot. He’s somehow a few minutes early which is very unusual for him. That’s the main reason that none of the Losers opt to carpool with him; he’s often egregiously late. He exits the car, whistling, and locks the door, swinging his keys in his hand.
The Losers typically meet in the arts hallway before school because it’s quiet and people will leave them alone, so Richie makes his way in that direction once he enters the school. He soon catches sight of Bev’s radiant red hair, and grins. He walks faster to join his friends, and slings his arm around Bev’s back immediately.
“Hey, Bevvie,” he immediately croons and leans in to kiss her cheek.
“Oh, darlin’,” Bev responds in a slightly southern drawl, “You’re back, I thought I’d nevah see my handsome husband again.”
Stan rolls his eyes.
Bev dramatically places her hand on her forehead and “faints” into Richie’s arms. Richie catches her with tact, and gasps at her display. Ben lets out a small laugh at their antics, and Mike smiles.
Richie props Bev up onto her feet and catches Eddie’s eye. He’s leaning against the cinder block wall and popping clementine slices in his mouth. Richie just knows that his hands will smell citrusy during the entirety of first period. He makes his way over to the other boy and ruffles his hair. Now he’s glading up angrily at Richie and trying to fix his hair.
“Asshole,” Eddie mutters.
“Aw, shucks, Eds,” Richie grins, “You’re flatter me.”
Eddie opens his mouth to say something to him, but the bell rings and he closes his mouth. “Let’s head to class,” he instead says.
Richie gives him a curious look, but nevertheless follows him.
Eddie and Richie have the same first period class, which is a study hall. One of the good things about senior year is that all of the Losers were able to make their schedule a lot lighter than it had been in previous years. They’ve already applied to colleges, hell, most of them have already committed, so they aren’t as concerned with school anymore.
Richie bounces jokes off of Eddie during the entire walk to their first period, and Eddie scowls and pretends not to find the other boy funny.
Study hall is a good class. Eddie takes notes, Eddie does homework, and Richie draws dicks all over Eddie’s papers. It’s nice. It’s easy. No way to get too close to Eddie in study hall.
The rest of his classes before lunch fly by, because they don’t matter. Statistics, whatever, who cares. Richie just wants to hang out with the Losers.
It’s finally starting to feel warmer outside again, so the Losers are starting to eat outside during lunch again, and March eighth happened to be a day where the Losers opted to venture outdoors. It felt tepid outside to Richie, the perfect temperature so that he wouldn’t overheat. He knew that Eddie would feel cold, though. Richie keeps a sweatshirt tucked into his backpack for days like these, days where Eddie might need an extra layer.
The Losers have a more secluded lunch spot that isn’t in the main courtyard of the high school. The Losers instead sit on the side of the school, where trees shade the lawn from the sun, and where there are two lonely picnic tables dispersed. The Losers take one picnic table, and, typically, the other table is empty.
When Richie arrives at the Losers’ table, it’s already filled. The seating arrangement of their table is simple. Bev, Ben, and Stan on one side, while Richie, Eddie, Bill, and Mike are on the other side. Richie’s lucky because he gets to sit next to Eddie and across from Bev. Bev and Richie would sometimes share a cigarette at lunch because no teacher would come looking at this area of the school during lunch. It’s like their area is off the rest of the school’s radar.
The group is already in easy conversation, and Richie only pipes up when he hears a good joke opportunity. Making Eddie hide his laughter is Richie’s favorite activity.
“So, Richie, huh-how do you feel finally buh-being eighteen?” Bill changes the subject, which Richie does not appreciate.
He grins awkwardly, poking at the Dr. Pepper can that he packed in his backpack. Bill had his birthday in January, so he’s already been eighteen for months. Of course, he’s been teasing Richie about this relentlessly, just like all their friends who were already eighteen. “It’s fine,” Richie responds, curt.
Truth is, Richie hates the fact that he’s officially an adult. He feels so old, but so fucking young. College is too tangible now. Adulthood is here. But, when he looks in the mirror he can’t see anything but a kid.
“C’mon, Rich, you’re a big kid now,” Bev ribs, trying to get him out of his funk.
“I’ve always been the biggest boy,” Richie boasts, perhaps too overconfident, and sinks down in his seat awkwardly. Everyone mostly leaves him alone after that, moving onto a different topic (Stan and Ben’s English project), but Eddie eyes him carefully.
Fuck, Richie hates how Eddie’s eyes are always on him. Always reading him. Don’t get him wrong, he loves Eddie’s eyes, but it feels like so much pressure when Eddie is always trying to figure out what Richie is feeling. Richie doesn’t want anyone knowing what he’s feeling, he doesn’t want anyone anywhere near his thoughts. They’d figure out something that Richie never wants anyone to know.
Lunch is fine, but it ends too quickly. It always ends too quickly.
Luckily, it’s one of the days where it’s warm enough for the clubhouse, so the Losers agreed to meet there after school.
Richie has a class with Stan at the end of the day, AP chemistry, which is fun because it’s one of the classes in which Richie has a better grade than Stan. Contrary to popular belief, Richie has always been good at school. Sure, he doesn’t always do his assignments, but he’s always done well on everything else. And, because of that, Richie and Stan had always had a sort of unspoken academic rivalry within the Losers, as the two with the best grades somehow.
Richie’s more scientifically inclined, so of course he does better than Stan in chemistry. It’s awesome because Stan silently fumes at him, then passive aggressively showing him grades from his English classes to get back at Richie. It’s all really entertaining, because Stan genuinely does get worked up about it sometimes, upset that Richie can effortlessly do good in classes, and it’s fun to see the usually calm Stan in such a competitive state.
But, even in chemistry, Richie was mostly looking forward to hanging out with everyone (and Eddie) in the clubhouse later. Stan isn’t much fun in class. Richie makes a lot of origami and Stan takes a lot of notes.
After school, Richie bids farewell to Stan. All the Losers know that Bev and Richie meet up everyday after school to smoke and drink soda from the vending machines.
Richie catches sight of Bev leaning against the brick wall in the back of the school, already holding a pack of Winstons. Richie’s favorite.
Once Bev spots him, she immediately offers out the pack of cigarettes to him and grins sheepishly. “Call it a late birthday gift,” she chuckles.
He takes it with a grin in return and pulls her into his arms, giving her a sloppy kiss on her freckled cheek, which she immediately wipes off with a laugh. Everyone in their school assumes Richie and Bev are dating because of their rampant PDA, but they are honestly the farthest thing from dating. Richie is too entangled in Eddie, whether or not Bev knows that.
“Bevvie, I love you more than anything. Truly the best gift I’ve received,” he breathes out, satisfied, and tacks on, “And please tell me that you have weed.”
“Richie, who am I?” Bev smirks. “Of course I have weed.”
“Oh, good. All I have on me are some edibles that I made the other day, and I don’t wanna wait,” Richie smiles.
Bev shoves him. “Richie you impatient shit! I don’t even know why you make edibles, you never use them!” She giggles.
“Because it’s the only way that Stan will get stoned with me!” Richie protests. “I make them out of necessity!!”
“Okay, okay, whatever,” Bev waves it off. “Let me pack this joint while you buy some Dr. Peppers from the vending machine on the side of the building.”
“Sounds good, Little Red,” Richie responds and heads off, already unzipping his backpack with two bucks packed into the main pocket.
And as he looks in his backpack, he curses himself. Fuck. He forgot about that.
The day before, after he smoked with Bev, he went to the corner store near the strip mall and slipped some porno magazines aimed towards women into his bag. (Aimed towards women as in, full of nearly naked and fully naked men). He couldn’t help himself. He looked at the stupid magazines and thought, Well, shit it is my birthday. He never meant to leave them in his bag, though. If anyone looks in his bag, that’s what they’ll see.
Okay, well, he’ll just be careful to make sure no one sees, then.
He buys the two sodas with his two bucks and the machine spits out two quarters in change. He shakes them in his hands as he walks to meet Beverly, with the two bottles in his other hand.
He opens the two bottles for them once he reaches Beverly, and places them next to her as she licks the rolling paper and seals the joint.
“Oh, Bev, a perfect joint, as always,” Richie praises, and pats her on the back.
“Can I borrow a lighter?” Bev asks.
Richie nods. “Always,” he replies and hands over his bright pink BIC lighter. He brings out his new pack of smokes too, and says, “Let’s pop open this bad boy, too.”
They pass around a joint and a cigarette for the next fifteen or so minutes, laughing all the more along the way.
Richie feels like he blinks and suddenly he and Bev had stumbled all the way to the clubhouse. Damn, Bev packed that joint tight.
The two of them climbed down, and, of course, the rest of the Losers were already in the clubhouse. Richie gets tunnel vision and makes a beeline for the hammock and Eddie. He gets annoyingly sappy when he’s high sometimes, and he always just wants to be near Eddie.
He shoves his way into the hammock with Eddie and Eddie wrinkles his nose in disgust.
“You smell like pot,” Eddie states.
“That I do, Eddie Spaghetti, and I am proud of it!” Richie grins. “But I prefer having the scent of your mom on me, I mean, hoowee have you smelt that woman?”
Eddie scowls. “Beep beep, asshole. And, of course I’ve smelt her. She’s my mom. I live with her.”
Richie just smiles at him.
Richie loves the clubhouse, and he especially loves when all of his friends are in the clubhouse.
And, Richie loves Eddie.
Richie wraps his arm around Eddie and Eddie blushes a light pink. The two are essentially spooning, and Richie simultaneously feels like it’s too intimate and not intimate enough.
They lay like that for nearly the entire duration of the hangout. Right up until Richie decides to leave to smoke a cigarette, bringing his school bag with him.
And, fuck.
Maybe he opened his bag and forgot.
Because the zipper of his bag was wide open.
And of course, of course his male porn magazines fell right out onto the wooden floor of the clubhouse. Right where Eddie can see. Right where everyone can see.
Richie freezes first, because of course he does. Then, he freaks out. Because of course he does.
And, then, the motormouth starts. Because of course it does.
Richie scoops up the magazine and shoves them in his bag, all while walking backwards to the ladder. “These aren’t mine, these are my mom’s, I don’t know how they got in here! I bet there’s women in the magazines too, anyways, I mean, it can’t be only men!” Richie rambles, then bumping into the ladder behind him.
He finally looks around to see the Losers staring at him, wide eyed and slack jawed. Richie catches Eddie’s eye for a second and sees a look of pure stone.
Richie slowly starts climbing the ladder. “Well, anyways, I should be going, ma will probably want me home for dinner,” Richie lies and cringes once he realizes that all of his friends know that his parents are out of town. “Bye,” Richie says, curt, before finally popping his head out of the entry to the clubhouse and nearly catapulting himself out into the forest.
Then he starts running, vaguely in the direction of the school. And, he doesn’t stop running until he’s in his car, hands shaking as he speeds home.
He pulls into his driveway and rushes to unlock the door, locking it behind him firmly so that no one can get in. He sprints upstairs to his room, tripping along the way, and throws his backpack across his bedroom, not wanting to think about his personal belongings. His fingers feel freezing when he pulls out a cigarette from his pocket.
He hasn’t thought a single thing since he was in the clubhouse. He feels like he’s in fucking shock, he can’t even process what just happened, what the Losers just saw.
He lights the cigarette, but almost burns his fingers several times.
Fuck. He can’t fucking believe that he let the Losers see that. He’s never been this fucking careless.
He rushes to his sock drawer, pulling out a small bag that used to be a coin purse, padded on the inside with scrap fabric. Sighing with relief once he has his hands on the bag, he collapses backwards onto his bed, immediately sitting up so that he can pull out his little Ziploc baggie of flower and start rolling a joint.
If he’s not thinking now, he needs to keep that up. He can’t bear to think about what just happened.
He finishes rolling his joint when his cigarette is about out, so he puts the cigarette out on the side of his bedside table and hopes that it doesn’t burn the wood.
He smokes the joint slowly. Every drag is enough sensory input to distract him from his life right now. His mind gets hazier and hazier as he proceeds, and soon he’s just sitting on the edge of his bed, quiet in contemplation and staring at a Billy Idol poster on his wall.
He could move away.
He could live in the sewers like Pennywise. (He shudders at the thought.)
He could live in the woods.
He could run away.
But really, all Richie wants to do is lay down. So he does. He puts on Bruce Springsteen’s first album, Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J., and lays down on his bed. His doors are locked, his mind is hazy, he’s safe here. He’s going to ignore everything for the rest of time.
He doesn’t remember falling asleep. The last thing he remembers is listening to Lost In The Flood, and feeling like he was drowning.